Haboob causes dust-up in Texas

Mar. 14, 2014
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A haboob approaches Lubbock on Tuesday evening. / National Weather Service

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

As a wall of dust roared across the Panhandle of Texas on Tuesday, the National Weather Service put out a warning that a "haboob" was on its way:

"Haboob northwest of Lubbock," the weather service warned. "If you must drive west of Lubbock, plan for near-zero visibility in blowing dust and strong winds of 50+ mph." A TV station, KCBD, put the warning on its Facebook page.

What is a haboob, you may ask? It's a word for a dust storm or sandstorm, and it's of Arabic origin, which apparently didn't sit well with some Texans.

Although the American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Meteorology defines a haboob as a strong wind and sandstorm in Sudan, the word has been in common use around the world since at least 1951, according to Jody James, the warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service in Lubbock.

"It is a word of Arabic origin, but we have a lot of words like that, like algebra. Cotton is actually an Arabic word, so whether we know it or not, we have a lot of Arabic words in our lexicon," James told KCBD-TV.

Other well-known weather words, such as tornado (Spanish) and hurricane (Native Caribbean), are from other languages.

Dry conditions continue in parts of the Plains and Southwest, so dust storms - or haboobs - will probably be a common occurrence throughout the spring and summer.